HE helped save Dunfermline from extinction and has just been installed as the club’s new chairman.

But Bob Garmory will be just as happy when he’s at East End Park as a punter again, telling his six-year-old grandson about the Pars’ glorious past.

The man in charge of getting the club back on track, after it almost went to the wall, believes the fans’ historic takeover will secure Dunfermline’s long-term future.

And if Pars United’s vision comes to fruition, Garmory says he’ll be quite content to revert back to being an ordinary supporter.

After their successful purchase of the club and stadium, Garmory and his new board officially took control yesterday.

It was a proud moment for the lifelong Pars fan – but he knows the hard work to get Dunfermline back to where they belong has only just started.

He said: “This is a proud day for me. I’m delighted we’ve managed to negotiate our way through it because there have been serious issues to resolve.

“But we’ve been fortunate to have a lot of Pars supporters come forward with their skills and enthusiasm. We have tackled everything thrown at us.

“We’ve been lucky not to have any egos. That could have been the death knell for us, too many people competing for air time. But there are no egos here now.

“It’s not about personalities. I hope to fade into the background again in the not too distant future. I just want to come here as a fan again. We’ve all been in this together from the start and at the end we’ll still just be Pars fans.

“But we’ll have done a great thing in between.

“The biggest success will be when we sit down together and just talk about the football. I’d love to get back to that.

“My grandson, Henry, is out in Germany just now but I want me and him to go to a match together. I’ll tell him about all the great players I saw at East End Park.

“That’s my inspiration. He’s only six and he’s already been to a few games.

“It’s great to know there are young fans in Fife – and they deserve to experience their own highs and lows with the team they support.”

Garmory revealed that throughout the process of keeping Dunfermline alive, no Pars fan has been paid for the work they’ve carried out. When he looks around at other clubs in financial difficulty, he’s grateful for the generosity of the East End Park faithful who rallied to save their club after it went into administration in March.

He said: “It’s a great feeling to know I’ve played a part in securing our future. But there has been a huge amount of work done by so many people – and none of them has been paid a penny.

“When I hear some of the sums of money bouncing around at other clubs it’s incredible. Every single activity carried out in the saving of Dunfermline has been done on a voluntary basis – because everyone has the club at heart.

“We have a local guy who has his own painting business. He’s coming in on Sunday to redecorate the Legends Bar, with the Paint Shed along the road kindly donating all the paint.

“The fans are redoing the building so we can’t go wrong.”

Pars fans dipped into their own pockets to ensure survival but now that they own the club, Garmory insists they’ll need to fork out more money to keep it going.

He said: “The Centenary Club here have the philosophy of fans paying a monthly contribution. But we want to expand that and make it easier to donate bigger sums.

“Pars Trust has a membership of 800 yet when it started it was just 200. We need to harness that.

“It sounds an awful thing to say but with the fans now owning the club they’re going to have to pay for that privilege.

“But if you own something you tend to look after it. I stayed in a council estate two doors from big Jim Leishman and sometimes you see properties the tenants don’t own and the garden’s a bit unkempt. Or there’s a fridge in the garden.

“But when people buy a house, all of a sudden they start to take care of it, they invest in it. It might be the same with Pars fans.

“It’s their club and no one can blame Gavin Masterton (former owner) any more. They have to believe in this set-up.”